Degrassi of the Dead
Find somewhere safe. A church. A mosque. A school. And pray. Degrassi of the Dead was a ten-minute Halloween zombie special of the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. It aired on October 26, 2007 in the United States, and on October 31, 2007 in Canada. It can be viewed in its entirety here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfikES2SjBM Plot The special opens with the Degrassi: TNG season 7 opening credits, which are soon overwhelmed with static and replaced by news reports and scenes of zombie mayhem. We then cut to Degrassi Community School, which is under siege by zombies. Inside are five teenagers: Manny, Paige, Ashley, Peter, and Jay. Manny provides commentary on how the drama of high school life left them ill-prepared for the zombie apocalypse, while Peter suggests that the reason why the zombified students are coming back to the school is due to memories of when they were alive. After a brief argument, Manny tries to tell the rest of the group that they shouldn't give up hope on her friend Emma coming to save them -- before her phone died, Manny got a call from Emma saying that she had gotten Mr. Simpson's car, and would come to their rescue. Ashley then points at the barricaded door, where we see a zombified Emma pounding away, crushing Manny's hopes of escape. With this news, Jay runs into the principal's office in order to grab the keys to the bus and make his own escape, declaring that he is looking out for himself and that his classmates should prepare to get eaten. Peter, however, points out that Jay is never going to find the keys, as he had already grabbed them for himself. The group then flees to the gymnasium while Jay gets his throat ripped out by the zombified principal. In the gym, Paige makes a snide remark about how she always knew that the principal was a "maneater," while Peter tries to get over the shock of seeing that his mother, the principal, is now a zombie. Manny and Ashley try to comfort him, telling him that his mom no longer remembers him, but Ashley soon changes her tune as she sees her boyfriend Jimmy, now a zombie, laying on the gym floor next to his wheelchair. Ashley tearfully discusses how she had so many plans for herself and him, and that, even though he no longer remembers her, she will live for the both of them. However, the zombies have entered the building, and are now pouring through the gym doors. Manny and Paige find shelter in an air vent, but Peter gets stopped by the zombies, throwing the two girls the bus keys and telling them that he will find them before getting dragged to the ground. Ashley, meanwhile, is stunned by the sight of Jimmy (who, in life, had been left paralyzed after a school shooting) getting up and walking... and then eating her. We then cut to a nightmare sequence of the zombified Emma, telling Manny how she had tried to warn people that "genetically-modified foods would get us in the end." (Emma had long been the show's resident "soapbox Sadie," earning nicknames like Greenpeace and Cause Girl.) Manny wakes up from her nightmare, and is pushed along by Paige, who says that the zombies will eventually find them. Along the way, Paige apologizes to Manny for having been such a bitch to her in the past, while Manny asks if Paige (who is bisexual) is hitting on her. The two girls eventually make it to a science lab, where they run into their fellow classmate Spinner, now a zombie and tied to a wall. After trying to grab Paige, he starts moaning "seeeexxxy," still having retained some of his class clown ways and male instincts. They then encounter the boy who had put Spinner in his position: Derek, who is now dressed as a mad scientist and has outfitted the lab accordingly. He is living out his insane post-apocalyptic fantasies, having wired the school with homemade explosives to take out the zombies, and he seeks to keep Manny and Paige as sex slaves to repopulate the world (that, and because he's horny). Paige realizes that, if they try to escape, Derek will blow them up, so she pretends to give into Derek's advances. Having distracted him, she then pushes him toward Spinner, who starts tearing into his neck. Unfortunately, Derek still has the detonator, and uses it to take out the whole school. Manny escapes, but Paige is caught in the explosion. Outside, Manny finds that Derek's plan didn't work, and that there are still a ton of zombies between her and the bus. Among the crowd is Peter, still alive, who has started acting like a zombie in order to fool them. Manny, happy to see him alive, follows his lead, and the two make their way to the bus. Once they get on, they plan to make their way to a deserted island. The special ends with Manny narrating about how nearly everybody she ever knew is now dead, how none of the drama of high school matters anymore, and how she and Peter are now free to start a new life, free from their pasts. Unfortunately, Peter had been bitten, and while on the bus, transforms and kills Manny. Zombie rules The zombie outbreak in Degrassi of the Dead was caused by GMO fruits and vegetables (there may also be a viral component, given the means of transmission), and is spread through bites and the consumption of contaminated food. Judging by how quickly Peter turned, the onset of zombism seems to be rapid, taking only a couple of hours after being bitten (although it's unknown how long Manny was asleep in the air vent or knocked out following the explosion). The scene with Jimmy strongly implies that zombism cures paralysis in its victims, although this may also have something to do with the fact that zombies don't feel pain. The zombies move at a brisk walk, faster than the Romero/Brooks shamblers, but slower than the sprinters of 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Zombies retain some memory of their human life, as seen when Spinner, the class clown, starts moaning "seeexxxy" to the girls. However, they can be fooled by shambling and moaning like one of them. There are no scenes of the zombies getting killed, although the characters all carry blunt melee weapons, implying that they can be defeated through the usual methods. Cast * Cassie Steele -- Manuela "Manny" Santos * Lauren Collins -- Paige Michalchuk * Jamie Johnston -- Peter Stone * Melissa McIntyre -- Ashley Kerwin * Mike Lobel -- Jay Hogart * Marc Donato -- Derek Haig * Miriam McDonald -- Emma Nelson * Aubrey "Drake" Graham -- Jimmy Brooks * Shane Kippel -- Gavin "Spinner" Mason * Melissa DiMarco -- Principal Daphne Hatzilakos Category:Films